Pat Rollins: It was a great year for outdoor excitement

Tuesday

Jan 8, 2013 at 3:15 AM

I was sitting at my desk looking over some information on a couple hunting trips that I might go on this coming fall when I found myself looking back at the year 2012. For the outdoorsman, last year was surely packed with excitement.

With a teenage son and a young daughter who was about to hit the double digit mark, I began the year hoping to share plenty of outdoor memories with my kids. Both enjoy ice fishing as well as open-water fishing, so as soon as we had enough safe ice, we dug out the tip-ups and jigging rods and headed out to our favorite ponds with the portable bob house in tow.

My daughter loves to chase the bright orange flags on our tip-ups, however, when I showed her how to fish with a jigging rod I think she found her calling. I remember one outing in particular when we stumbled onto a big school of monster white perch in a big bay that I’ve been fishing for decades. As soon as she dropped her first jig down the hole, I knew we were in for a special day.

“Daddy!” she shouted as the tiny rod doubled over and she tried to gain the edge as line poured from the reel. “I think it’s a really big one. I can’t even turn the handle.”

I watched as she laughed like crazy with a huge grin on her face as she tried to land that fish. It took several minutes, however, she finally managed to pull that three-pound white perch from the hole, then she turned to me and asked me to quickly bait her jig again so she could catch another one. Well, I baited the hook and before the jig hit the bottom again, she was fighting another perch. In just a matter of minutes, she managed to land more than a dozen monster perch.

My son had his moments while ice fishing too, but he seemed to enjoy trout fishing on our local streams even more. I remember one particular trip we took up to the White Mountains when we decided to try fishing a beaver pond. Like usual, he took the point and before my wife, daughter and I reached to beaver dam, he was already there and had baited his hook. I watched as he cast out into a large pool and as soon as the worm hit the water I watched the line become taut in a blink of an eye as a colorful 10-inch long brook trout darted out and inhaled his offering.

“Look Dad!” he yelled as he set the hook.

Over the next hour or so, we all enjoyed some of the best brook trout action I’ve ever seen.

My buddies and I had some great experiences fishing for salmon and lake trout last spring, but the small mouth bass action on the Big Lake seemed to steal the show last summer. I’ve always been a big fan of fishing with rubber baits, but this summer I found myself tying more crankbaits on my line than ever and my buddies and I enjoyed a ton of success. Light action spinning rods and crankbaits surely proved effective.

There were plenty of great hunting moments during 2012, too. One of my most memorably ones was a trip that ended without success.

My son and I had awakened well before daylight to take part in the Youth Turkey Hunting weekend. I’d scouted a number of locations and found our best opportunity for success was just up the road from our house.

I figured I’d have a fight on my hands trying to wake up a teenage boy at four o’clock in the morning. But, well before the alarm clock rang, he was up, had the coffee pot on and was already suited up in his camouflage.

“Come on Dad, we’ve got to go,” he said as I quickly tried to inhale a piece of toast as he pushed me out the door.

We reached our destination in plenty of time to set out the decoys and take our positions behind a small ground blind. Then as soon as it was light enough to see I told him to make a series of calls on the box call just like we practiced. As soon as he hit the call, we got a response from just over the grassy hill in front of us.

His eyes got as wide as saucers when that Tom gobbled. He hit it again and again the gobbler responded. For more than two hours my son played peek-a-boo with that mature Tom and even though he never did get a crack at him, it was the most exciting turkey hunt I’ve ever been on.

My daughter likes to go along on my huntings as well. The most memorable hunt that I can remember was when she joined me on an early season bow hunt. We’d settled in the two-person ladder stand I had set up for an afternoon hunt and as the acorns dropped around us, she sat there in her camo outfit scanning for any signs of a whitetailed deer.

We sat there for a good two hours watching a variety of wildlife when something snapped a branch off to our left. I felt a tug on my coat sleeve as she spotted a spikehorn buck with near foot long tines, for the next twenty minutes, we watched the young buck eat acorns and make a scrape and finally come into range where I ended my season.

As I look back at all the exciting times I had with my kids, I can’t help but hope to enjoy more of the same in 2013.